The Game of Death

The carnival arrived at dusk, as it always did—unannounced, erupting like a malignant fungus from the decay of an abandoned gravel lot on the outskirts of town. No rumbling trucks, no bustling workers. Just an eerie presence.

They called it The Midnight Carnival, because that was when it opened its haunted gates. A dozen tattered tents cobbled together from scraps and broken dreams, rides that moaned with the absence of power, and barkers whose smiles were too wide and eyes hollowed out by despair.

But one tent was shrouded in silence. Nestled between the rotting Tilt-A-Whirl and the decrepit funnel cake shack, a crimson-and-black striped booth bore a sign that flickered in violent golden light:

"The Game of Death – Win a Prize, Learn Your Fate!"

No one ever saw anyone manning that booth. Yet year after year, a brave soul dared to play it. And every year, the cost was a life.

Part I: The Dare

Seventeen-year-old Maddie Rowe scoffed at curses. Ghosts were mere folklore, and the whispered campfire legends of high school nights were nothing more than late-night lies. But she believed in dares—those adrenaline-charged challenges that defied logic.

"Fifty bucks if you spin the wheel and grab a prize," her friend Liam taunted, laughter rippling through the tense night. "Come on, Rowe. Prove you’ve got guts."

Maddie smirked, popped her gum, and strode toward the booth as if she were stepping into the jaws of a beast. "Easy money," she murmured.

Inside, the booth was lit by a solitary gas lamp whose unsteady flame cast shadows that danced against an unseen rhythm. At its center towered an enormous, ornate wheel—jet black, its rim encircled by menacing crimson numbers, arcane symbols and shapes: a noose, a dagger, a heart ripped in two, a burning house.

Beneath the wheel, a line of grotesque plush animals hung like macabre trophies—each handmade with cruel attention to detail, their button eyes leaking streams of pitch-black thread.

A note was scrawled in an unsteady hand:

"Spin once. Take one prize. All plays are final."

Maddie hesitated for only a heartbeat before setting the wheel in motion. The wheel shrieked like tortured metal being ripped apart. It finally stopped on a symbol: an eye skewered by a thorn.

From the shelf, one of the ghastly plush toys tumbled into her grasp—a one-eyed rabbit with jagged, feral teeth.

She laughed, lifting it in a mock display of triumph.

"That’s it? A creepy toy?"

But as she spun around, the carnival lights sputtered and dimmed—the rabbit’s single eye blinked with an otherworldly glimmer.

Part II: The Toll

That night, Maddie’s sleep was haunted by endless, terror-filled visions of eyes—eyes exploding in a cascade of blood, eyes watching her every move, eyes torn open by unseen hands. When the sun rose the next morning, her right eye was bloodshot, every vein pulsating darkly like ink beneath her skin. The following night, inexplicable black tears streamed down her cheeks.

On the third night, horror struck home: Liam was discovered in the school's locker room, his eyes savagely gouged out. No weapon, no trace of a perpetrator—only Maddie’s cursed rabbit, stuffed grotesquely in his open mouth.

Desperate, she tried to destroy it. When she set it aflame, it emitted a heart-wrenching scream. She hurled it into the swirling river—only to find it perched upon her pillow the next morning.

Then the whispers began: "One must die for the prize to sleep."

With each passing day, Maddie’s reflection in the mirror grew more nightmarish. Her eye throbbed relentlessly; the world blurred into a surreal terror. She saw ghastly apparitions lurking behind unsuspecting faces, shadows that slithered in the bright light of day.

The rabbit now occupied a sinister throne at her desk, silently watching, its grin twisting into something inhuman.

Part III: The Return

Consumed by fear and rage, Maddie stormed back to the carnival, the cursed rabbit clutched tightly in trembling hands.

"I want out!" she screamed at the abandoned booth, her voice echoing off cold, dead wood.

In reply, the wheel spun by itself—a macabre dance as if controlled by hands from beyond. It halted on a chilling new symbol: her own face, its mouth crudely stitched shut.

A new prize tumbled down—a doll resembling herself, eyeless and tightly wrapped in cruel, piercing barbed wire.

Then the barkers emerged, not of human flesh but warped apparitions steeped in malevolence. They seized her, dragging her into the booth, into the spin of the cursed wheel, into the screaming, grinding gears hidden behind its facade.

Maddie Rowe was consumed by the darkness and never seen again.

Yet, the cycle continued. The following year, a new prize appeared on the shelf—a one-eyed rabbit clutching a faded yearbook photo of Maddie, hauntingly stitched to its chest.

Epilogue:

They say the Game still lingers in the shadows. Its only rule remains:

You spin. You win. Someone dies.

Sometimes it’s you.

Sometimes it’s something far worse.

Dare to play?